While down at the BETT show this week I watched the adjustable spanner in the image on the left “printed into existence”, it took around two hours.  It was astonishing to watch and in my opinion profound in its implications,  this new capability has got to be at least as revolutinoary as the desk top publishing revolution was 25 years ago in that it allows small organisations to create personalized 3D objects transmitted digitally or created on the screen.

The technology that created this very expensive plastic spanner was the HP designjet color 3D printer pictured below.  Watching  an object materialise one layer at a time was

mesmeric, objects are built up layer by layer with the result that it can create complex curves, hollows etc.

The interface with the digital world just got a little bit more fuzzy and ideas like mass-bespoke become possible.  The ability to allow design students to express their creativity and prototype prior to digitally sending off a design to a mass fabrication facility can only transform manufacturing as we know it.

Self publishing books is one thing but the ability to self publish physical devices is a whole new meme that needs a lot more thinking about.

You can see, (if you enlarge the image), that the education price was £9,690+VAT for the white plastic version and £12,475+vat for the color, that makes those spanners quite expensive unless we believe that this sort of technology will underpin manufacturing over the next century, if we do then  it becomes a prerequisite in every school of art and design and engineering shop – it would be good if primary school kids could get a look in as well. Incorporating such devices into the curriculum has the potential to contextualize many a rather dull curriculum.  Such a device has the potential to create a renascence curriculum where students are required to include material science, material culture, maths and design to create an object.

You could quite see how a library of the smaller objects in the History of the world in a 100 objects together with how they where created their cultural significance might transform a history class to take a very obtuse example.

The set of cogs and wheels demonstrated below is an example of applied maths and engineering that could transform a maths or physics lesson.  You can see that it required the ”Printing”of multiple objects requiring planning skills.  An engineer friend of mine suggested that we teach maths incorrectly, maths he says, “allows me as an engineer to predict the future – I can model an outcome before I do the work”, such contextualization combined with the ability to create a physical device could increase the relevance of mathematics for millions switched off by the abstract nature of algebra.

While slower than the replicator in star trek, I get the feeling that this technology will speed up, incorporate inks with different  properties.

Like in almost every other endeavour, rapid prototyping facilitates learning.  If you get the impression from reading this that I was excited by the educational possibilities of this device you would be right.  Having spent a week at the BETT show, I only wish that they would get on and finish the transporter!

So what I hear you say, publishing is publishing same old….  I beg to differ.

To my mind the move to open access, online publishing offers significant benefits in academic publishing and is bringing significant change to the publishing industry.

The new journal website provides a list of benefits describing why we think the new model works, in this piece I take these ”features” and elaborate the ideas further to explain why ALT took the decision to change its publishing model. 

Open Access – Research in Learning Technology is free from all access barriers, allowing for global dissemination of your work. Well not quite, you will still require some sort of web reader, however when compared traditional publishing, requiring subscription payments and a limited circulation, there is no contest. 

Indexing – once published, your article will be comprehensively indexed in the foremost international databases. The ease with which content can be indexed and searched widens its potential audience.

Online submission – simply click on the ‘Submit Manuscript’ button, register yourself as an author, submit your paper and follow its progression. Again removing barriers of cost and time.  The introduction of workflow with automated responses removes all those lost in the post issues and will encourage international collaboration

Free to publish – Currently there are no article submission or article processing fees. ALT intends to  keep this the case with the sole criteria for selection being the quality and suitability of the content that is submitted.

Supplementary material – you may add data sets, protocols, videos,
interactive files, etc. to your paper – at no cost.  This is a critical feature.  Sharing data and or providing readers with  a video of an author giving a talk creates opportunities both for collaboration and for elaboration both of which are likely to make research  better and more useful.

Author retains copyright – you are free to disseminate your work, make
unlimited copies, and deposit it in any repository.  Under most traditional publishing agreements this is not the case, often to the detriment of a main goal of the author, which is the widest possible dissemination of their research!

Rapid publication process – upon acceptance of your article, you can
expect your work to be online within 3-4 weeks. Traditional publishing models can take up to 18 months from submission to publication, in a field such as learning technology this represents a barrier to progress.

Post-publication statistics – you can continue to login to the website after publication and check the number of full-text views your paper is receiving. This ability to gain insight into readership and impact on a regular basis as a core function of the system can only provide valuable feedback to authors over time,

ALT’s move to Open Access publishing model was not made lightly, and over the next two to three years ALT will learn if the move was a good one or not.  Some thought, care and attention has been given to the editorial processes that support quality.  The underlying peer review processes that contribute to the quality of the journal remain unchanged; the journal continues to be available in print, with copies deposited in the Legal Deposit Libraries; and all articles will continue to have a DOI reference (the online equivalent to an ISBN) so as to support citation.

Are there issues and risks, of course, the loss of a revenue stream for the association from Journal subscriptions –  issues around permanence and citation – will the reputation of the journal be affected.  These are a few of the top line risks, however it feels like the technology is now sufficiently mature for the benefits to be worth the risk.

Did I mention that all previous content is now also available on line for free.  So happy new year to you all, consider this to be a new year minor revolution.

Dick

How ALT went about tendering for the service is described here at  http://repository.alt.ac.uk/887/

The new journal site is found here <http://www.researchinlearningtechnology.net/index.php/rlt>

In the interest of full disclosure I should point out that I am a Trustee of ALT and chair of its publication committee.

Gutenberg

If you are here to learn how to upload the free e-books from project Gutenberg onto your Amazon Kindle then click here  or scroll down

I continue to be impressed with the use of short videos as a method for teaching people how to do things.  I suspect that the process of creating such short videos is an even more powerful tool for re-enforcing learning, and can create an asset that others may find useful.   Projects such as the ever impressive Khan Accademy http://www.khanacademy.org/ with its 2500+ instructional videos and associated tutor eco-system is worth  taking a look at if you have not already done so.

Youtube http://www.youtube.com/ and video jug  http://www.videojug.com are full of great examples of short videos that demonstrate howto do things, though of variable quality. It is always easy to criticise others efforts , having watched a few of these, read some materials on best practice  and thought a bit about what makes a good one work, I thought I would have a go at creating one.

I recently found out how to load free books from Project Gutenberg onto my Amazon Kindle and thought that it would be a good subject, it not being mentioned on the amazon instructions and on the basis that e-readers and OER are likely to be a thing of the future.

While the cost of a 2 min advert on commercial TV can be  many times more than the annual budget of a small school, I thought I should set myself some design goals and constraints:

Design goals

1. The final video should be no longer than 5 minutes in length.

2. After viewing it most people would feel confident to have a go at exploring Project Gutenberg and be able to download an e-book to their PC, connect their Kindle and upload the book.

3. Compared with a written howto it should give the viewer more confidence to have a go.

4. The aim was for the viewer to feel as if they had a friendly instructor sat beside them and to keep personality out of the way and focus on activity.

Design constraints:

1. On the basis that most people are short of time, I set myself a goal that it should not take more than 1 hr to plan and film the material, no scripts, a  simple structure outline

2. Use simple software tools that are free.

3. To minimise risks and assumptions and for it to more than instruct, for it to motivate someone to have a go.

To see how it turned out click below: (best viewed full screen)

What did I learn?

In creating this I learnt that it was not as easy as I first thought to create one of these.

It took me about 2 hrs to film the material 1hr to process it and another 1 hr to save it to the various formats and upload it to Youtube so that’s 4 hrs for a 5 minute video.  Next time I feel sure I could get it down by a  1/3  but it still it took longer than I thought.

You need to speak slowly, and leaving  2 second pauses at the end of every learning point and section helps you with the editing.

The ability to insert captions is a strong feature.  It allows teaching points to be re-enforced and lets you make up for mistakes in the video – you can see that in disconnecting the kindle I just pulled the cable but in the video I use a caption to remind people to disconnect the device correctly.

Sound quality is absolutely critical – I am not happy with the sound quality used in the screen capture in this one and having watched quite a few of these it makes such a difference.  Video quality needs to be adequate, if you are pointing out things on a screen then its important that they can be seen.  For that reason this was saved with a high resolution.  Nick Newman from http://www.careersbox.co.uk/ told me that I should think of these as radio with pictures and it seems right to me.

Conclusion

Creating a video howto is a good exercise to have a go at.  I think that asking students to create some of these  would be a very strong  formative assessment method, particularly when other students are encouraged to provide feedback.

 Tools used

Screen capture: Hypercam 2 free screen capture.  easy to install and allows you to select an area of the screen to capture http://www.hyperionics.com/hc/

Video editing and assembling: Windows live move maker http://explore.live.com/windows-live-movie-maker  free to download and easy to use.  This software allows you to add images captions titles etc .

Hosting: load onto a Youtube channel

Video capture: a Sony handycam with an internal hard disk

I would be interested to hear your opinion on the use of short videos as an aid to teaching and learning!

• Is it is better to have 3 x 5 minute videos than 1 x 15 minute video?
• What do you think makes a great video howto?
• What pitfalls did I make in this one and what should I do to improve it?

1. Circles – closed groups,
2. Hangouts – chat boards,
3. Instant upload – media sharing,
4. Sparks – tagging,
5. Huddle – group messaging.

A packaging of services that are already in existence bound together through a directory service AKA google mail. Lots to like from the promotional sites but then that’s its job. Not got an invite yet so hard to say. The interesting thing will be to see what the crowds do with it! The shift from products to services from platform to service is astonishing, this suite of services is clearly designed for the smart phone world that google are building on their android platform which continues to gain market share.

I watch with interest.

Got to say I worry about telling people that content that they put up on the internet will be restricted to a “circle” of individuals, its like saying email is private. Mostly true but not when it matters.

Expecting an invite in the post will talk more then. More from google here http://goo.gl/u7nrL

Update Invite arrived thanks! added the +1 button to the blog. Time to give it a test run.

Birth of Venus eye - google art project

Visit a museum today – I guess you will have all seen this, but the Google virtual museum service using street view technology impresses http://tinyurl.com/6ybbupk

Is it as good as going to a museum NO! Does it provide a way to visit a museum for millions of people who will never get to go YES! The ability to get in really close on some exhibits is  impressive, the ability to look at particular pieces in high resolution, or using dark light and read notes is provided as a link (here is an example http://www.googleartproject.com/museums/tate/the-eve-of-the-deluge-256 )

The image above is a snip from the Birth of Venus, the level of detail you can see is astonishing, having seen the real thing, I was never allowed to get this close!  The potential is obvious I think, quite reminds me of the BBC doomsday interactive video disk but much better and capable of scaling.

“This is what Google says :  The Art Project is a collaboration between Google and some of the world’s most acclaimed art museums. Using Street View and a suite of Google technologies, you can now explore the world’s museums and great works of art online.”

So how would you use this as part of a class?

Uruguay has committed to providing every child in primary school their own device for use at school and home. These are not wealthy nations; this reflects a commitment to raising levels of basic skills and educational performance across the continent. While such aims are targeted in the future, supporting this level of infrastructure will develop a technology industry today similar in manner to the capability and industry that developed in the UK and the USA during the early 80’s with the BBC  micro-comoputer and Apple II, Commodore Pet etc.  It could be argued that access to low cost devices such as these kick started  the e-learning and computer industry in the UK and USA,  something Latin America may be trying to emulate.

There was some criticism of the OLPC device, its interface and impact but three years on few can doubt its influence in creating a whole new class of devices and the evidence above would seem to vindicate its value as a catalyst for change.

With the next generation  OLPC tablet under development rumoured to cost $75 and run the Android Operating system it has the potential to change a generation. http://tinyurl.com/2ugv6ap

They use a combination of  the My guide content targeted at people who are new to the internet and internet services and courses and content from learndirect .

What really impressed me was how they have opened up the learning centres at the prison to the local community and significantly to the friends and family of prisoners.

Increasingly public services such as housing, jobs, social services etc are more easily accessed via the internet.  Any scheme that can help offenders and their families gain access to these services once released must help in reducing re-offending, thought it would be good to collect evidence (anyone out there got some evidence on this?)

To my way of thinking this is really progressive,  as budgets tighten more and more services will be delivered on line, ensuring that whole segments of the population are not disenfranchised from such services is a good piece of social glue

During our visit we heard that Becta have written a piece on this site and it can be found here

now in HTML5

The site linked below is a collection of HTML 5 examples implemented in the chrome browser, to run them you will need Chrome.  I have been using Chrome as my core browser now for about 3 months and have to say I am impressed with the speed and functional separation of code in each Tab.  Each tab is ineffect its own browser, problems in one do not impact on any of the other tabs or cause the browser to crash.  In three months the browser has not lost control.

The demonstrations in the link are mostly graphical but they do show the power of what we are about to experience.  We can expect a much richer  user-experience with the ability to implement a rich set of business rules.  To my mind another foundation  stone that will underpin cloud based services.

The browser version of Asteroids takes me back (remember you need a chrome browser to make these work)

http://www.chromeexperiments.com/

Agile learning logo

A few weeks ago David Jennings from http://alchemi.co.uk and I were talking on Skype about the concept of Agile learning (David had previously posted on this and is interested in new ways for organisations and individuals to look at learning and how the internet may have impacted on this.

David sent me a few questions for consideration and what follows is the result.  Having worked in the internet and software industry the Agile term has become very popular so in the first part of this reply I attempt to map the agile development manifesto themes onto a agile learning theme.

There can be few that doubt that the internet provides access to knowledge and information in a way that just a few years ago was science fiction.  The internet itself continues to improve, less than five years ago it took Google between 5 -14 weeks to index a new web page, today this is typically achieved in under a day.

However just because we can gain access to the information does not necessarily mean that we have the tools at our disposal to use it to learn from.  This post is trying to answer some of those questions.

Agile Learning and Agile Software Development

What do we mean by Agile Learning? In software development, the ‘agile’ movement was as a reaction against large scale development projects governed by a monolithic organisational standard perceived to be overly bureaucratic, costly and slow for what is often small scale development. Not all software development is suitable for such an approach in much the same way that not all learning and assessment should be considered suitable for an agile approach (though there may be elements within large learning programmes that might benefit from agile methods to better reflect real world situations).

The agile development manifesto defines some core values:

• Individuals and interactions v processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

Here is my take on how the principles of Agile Learning might relate to those of agile development:

Interview

David Jennings (DJ): Can you say a bit more about the conditions under which learning goals can change, and where Bloom’s mastery learning fits into the picture?

(DM) We can build business models, and possibly learning experiences, in an evolutionary fashion. You set out with a clear goal, and iterate as you go to make sure that you’re still on track. In the process you learn something; quite possibly that this is the wrong way to do it, or that you’re asking the wrong question! See Getting to Plan B for more on the perspective that encourages this evolutionary thinking. Having clear goals, which are easily tested so you know when you’ve reached them (or not), does not mean that you can’t change the goals — as long as you do so with consent of the interested parties, having demonstrated to their satisfaction that the goals were wrong.

In the 1980s, Benjamin Bloom wrote a paper on the significant improvements in achievement made possible by alternative forms of instruction. This suggests that education has yet to mirror the kinds of innovation that we’ve seen in other sectors — retail, healthcare, manufacturing — in recent decades. Teaching perhaps needs to become more content-centric, rather than teacher- or classroom-centric — though this is not to say that I want to do away with teachers/ instructors  / mentors.  It’s just about putting the goals at the centre of the learning, and not the classroom experience.

(DJ)You said that Agile Learning already exists — how, where and what’s making it spread?

(DM)The need to rapidly acquire new skills and knowledge, combined with the knowledge engine that is the internet, promotes self-directed learning — be it formal, informal or recreational. Access to how-to videos via YouTube, and the previous whole set of how-to documentation that underpinned the open source Linux development platform have shown that recipes, plus a learning goal, can form the basis of significant learning and development programmes.

(DJ) You distinguish between shallow and deep learning. To what extent do you think Agile Learning is destined to focus on shallow experiences?

(DM)There is a view that says that every Google query is a piece of shallow Agile Learning (after all why would you post a query if you already knew the answer, other than to prove to someone else that you know the answer). There is a goal a question requiring an answer, a tool the search engine and a need for some analysis of content, the results returned by the engine, with synthesis or application.

This is both agile and though clearly shallow, learning, though effective use of search engines may require a range of core agile skills; formulation of queries, how to judge the providence and veracity of what is returned, and basic technology skills that so many take for granted.  These are are not yet universal.

If we accept the above as an example of Agile Learning then it’s clear that there is a lot of Agile Learning taking place and that most of it is “shallow learning”.  This does not mean that with a slightly larger tool set, a more complex learning goal and group of motivated individuals these techniques could not result in significantly deeper learning (there are many similarities here with the Oxbridge seminar model).

DJ: What do you think are the “core agile skills”? Do you think they’re similar to the literacies of self-organised learners that I blogged previously, and what proportion of people do you think have these skills?

(DM)It’s not whether you have the skills or you don’t; it’s a degree of competence. Anyone who uses Google has these skills to a greater or lesser extent. Most people will know they have to discriminate the reliability of information they find on the web, though they won’t necessarily know all the different ways you might do this. Even sophisticated users can be misled by sources bent on deception.

DJ: How important is it to have a plan for learning, and what kind of planning do you think would be right for Agile Learning?

(DM)This has to be one of the core features of Agile Learning, having a clear goal that one or more people can focus around in short iterations and having a way of measuring this provides an end point, a measurable output and a sense of achievement. Having clear criteria that define the end of a learning iteration can only be a good thing.

Examples might be along the lines of

• after this iteration I will be able to…
• after this iteration I can demonstrate…
• after this iteration I can explain and show the relationships between…

DJ: What are the challenges with assessing Agile Learning?

(DM)The challenges with Agile Learning are very much the same as with any other form of learning. If certification is required, then there has to be some sort of strong and rigorous assessment that underpins the knowledge and practical skills being taught.

Issues such as personation, plagiarism, weak testing regimes, and corruption all apply. However in Agile Learning we have some advantages in that clear goals are set, intervals are defined and typically short and there may be an end result delivered via a group allowing the group to self-assess (something that should be encouraged). Moderation may of course be needed.

For more formal qualifications then formal assessment has to be deliverable. The UK Driving Test with its theory and practical test might be considered a good example of Agile Learning. I have just completed the RYA Day Skipper certificate again containing a theoretical and practical elements, delivered in several short sessions with clear goals. Both are great examples of Agile Learning and both high stakes when you consider the implications of poor theoretical or practical skills.

DJ: Those are interesting examples, because they’re not the kinds that I would first think about as cases of Agile Learning…

(DM)There are some things you have to practise. And there’s tacit knowledge that you can’t pick up from just talking and reading. Agile Learning won’t help you learn to ride a bike. But there’s the theory test that’s now part of the Driving Test: you pick these things up not just through the British School of Motoring, but through talking to your friends, going on a simulator, buying a book and so on, driving with your parents and relatives.

Most of the Day Skipper learning was delivered though practical elements that you get ticked off and signed when you’ve demonstrated competence on board. For the theoretical stuff there was formative assessment (weekly homework, delivered via email) and summative assessment, several more formal tests. All content was contextualised and some areas required 100% pass while other areas had less rigor Our instructor explained this saying “You’ve just got to know this or you are a risk to yourself and others.” These are examples of Agile Learning blending into accreditation.

DJ: What is about this learning that makes it agile?

(DM) You define the pace, you decide which elements you want to do when, you decide who you learn with as a group. You can do the Day Skipper certification in a week’s crash course or over a year or so.  We took a weekend taster, and got some elements of our “competent crew” accreditation in that first weekend. Then we looked at the syllabus, and did the theory element over the winter, through a blend of classroom learning and working through online instructional materials.  The offline materials enabled me to miss a few class sessions due to work pressures.

It was agile for me because I had a suite of tools, agreed communication practices and strong content underpinned with a group of fellow students and a strong structure.  Our instructor had one of the highest success rates in the country, and I believe the way he achieved this was to give people different methods and tools, he our risks first. (He said he was going to the assessment of the first theory part after four weeks, but actually did it after six). There was a real blend of formal and informal learning: we went to the pub afterwards and were able to explore issues in a different way then.

Agile Learning doesn’t have to be assessed, but if you want it to be, you can put in methods that will work.

DJ Where do you think Agile Learning might fit with the roll out of mobile internet offerings?

(DM)Mobile internet, especially with new channels like Android phones are to my mind the most exciting new platform since the Sinclair spectrum and I expect it to have a greater impact than the PC or laptops. Combining a whole range of sensory devices (light sensor — camera; directional — compass; sonic — microphone; RFID), combined with GPS and internet connection these devices have a capability that will open up significant new learning opportunities. We can in effect carry a learning device that will increasingly understand its physical context and allow us to integrate our world. With applications like ZXing and Google Goggles we already have the ability to analyse photographs, extracting semantic information and other data from them, and linking through to secondary sources. Increasingly the world through which we navigate will contain a data layer from which meaning can be accessed and knowledge inferred.

Increasingly we can expect information and knowledge to remain in the cloud rather on personal or corporate servers (my feeling is that mobile internet will accelerate this) this will provide even larger layers of data that will be mined for meaning.

DJ: What areas do you think mobile and Agile Learning solutions might be most useful — either in the developed or developing world.

(DM)My feeling is that the entry cost and thirst for knowledge and agile how-to content will drive the emerging economies to adopt Agile Learning solutions quickly. Access to first generation mobile signal technologies is rapidly becoming ubiquitous when measured against population density providing an communication infrastructure that is changing economic models not altered for centuries.

There is a thirst and demand for education, and knowledge at a low unit cost outside what we call the first world that these technologies will provide access to. Closer to home, we can may see mobile internet blur the boundary between formal and informal learning, access to knowledge and information becoming always on.

I was stuck that in formal education there is often a correct answer, once outside formal education there are many correct answers each with their own compromises. Agile methods and learning may help us achieve a deeper understanding of these compromises faster, as well as allowing us to continue to learn.  These are early days.

David and I are interested in hearing other views and opinions on how learning might be made more agile, what tools you use?

Other thoughts on agile learning can be found at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Agile-Learning/117984328220658

http://twitter.com/agilelearn